Yucky. Messy. Dirty.

When my son turned two, we had a trash party. In the middle of his party, we dumped our Christmas wrapping trash bags onto the ground and created an ocean of garbage on the patio. We then played relay races to see who could pick up the most trash in the fastest time. My delighted 2-year-old cheered us on, yelling “TRASH! TRASH! TRASH!” as he bent his knees and clapped his incredibly small hands together. I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that it was the best day of his life.

I’m not sure when his love for trash began, but it’s all-consuming. When we go to the park, he will sprint away from the playground toward the black splotchy trash can in the distance. When we attend his music class on the grassy field, I am careful to point our backs to the trash can, lest he spend the entire hour digging for trash treasures. If he sees a used wrapper on the ground, well, you can bet he will be picking it up and holding onto it until he finds a receptacle. 

Given his deep adoration for trash, you’ll understand why I was perplexed when he suddenly developed a strong distaste for anything yuh-tee, meh-kee, or doo-wee. That’s toddler for “yucky, messy, or dirty,” by the way. 

Lately, he’s been struggling with being dirty. He REALLY does not like food on his hands, sand stuck to his palms, or snot on his face (honestly, who does?). Temper tantrums abound when dirt gets into his shoe or juice stains his clothing. I stare at the boy who loves trash and wonder how we got here. But then I hear it: my own voice, shouting, “No, no. Don’t pick up that trash. It’s yucky. Messy. Dirty.”

Oh. 

So that came from me.

In my defense, trash is all of those things. But crumbs on the hands, sand in the shoe, food on the shirt? I want him to be okay with that. 

This Spring, we enroll in a toddler art class. The first project we are given is painting. Here we go, I think, bracing myself for my son to become unglued. To my surprise, he opens his palms and holds them up to me. I put a little dab of color in his palm. As we immerse ourselves in the project, I encourage him to create a handprint on his paper. Not only does he plop down a painted handprint, he then smears it. He joyfully mixes all of the colors together with his fingers, creating a beautifully chaotic spread of paint. 

There is something so profoundly human about creating beautiful things with our hands. 

While we drive home from class, he sits in his carseat holding his painting like a book. He stares at it for the entire drive. Over and over, I hear him say, “Wow. Byou-i-ful.” 

He says that a lot, actually. He said it a couple of weeks ago when he came downstairs in the morning to see we had a new lamp. He said it when I hung a flag banner on the shelf. When he placed a sticker on a piece of paper. 

And I know that comes from me, too. 

Kids are sponges, soaking up what they see and hear and then squeezing it back out. If he’s soaking up a sense of awe, delight, and excitement over the subtle beauty of everyday life, I’m doing something right. I think of all the times I’ve marveled over a crayon scribble, a tall lego tower, a flower, a sunset, an illustration. “Look, Miles! Oh my gosh, how beautiful!”  I marvel over him and his creations, and over life itself, too. 

Tonight before bed, he sees the painting hanging on the wall in his bedroom. He first comments on its beauty, and then looks down at his hands and says, “Yucky.” They are clean now, but he remembers the mess that had been required to make that masterpiece.

“Yes,” I say. “Sometimes we have to get messy to make beautiful things.”

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Overheard at Home".